AH Challenge: Patron Saint of Democracy
- Thread starter iori
- Start date
Solomaxwell6
Banned
Does it have to be like an actual Catholic saint? Because it could be something like America's old national personification Columbia becoming known as the Patron Saint of Democracy, especially in more Catholic-y areas, like Boston or parts of NYC. That wouldn't take much. Maybe part of a propaganda campaign. It's not like the rise of Uncle Sam as the US's personification is at all historically mandated.
It has to be an actual person.
Does'nt matter, it just has to be someone who did something that furthered democracy to a point that they're considered the Saint of Democracy.
Dure
Banned
How about Tom Paine or Jefferson? They would be spinning in their graves so fast St. Thomas Eddison could run a generator off of them being as how they were rather opposed to organised religion.
Sts. Charles I of Great Britain, Oliver Cromwell, James a' caca (II & VII of England and Scotland) did more to usher in democracy than most.
I would suggest Che too but he appears to be regarded as the second comming of Christ in many quarters not just a mere saint.
Sts. Charles I of Great Britain, Oliver Cromwell, James a' caca (II & VII of England and Scotland) did more to usher in democracy than most.
I would suggest Che too but he appears to be regarded as the second comming of Christ in many quarters not just a mere saint.
Er... I would have though than the pre-requisite of being, ya know, a Catholic, should have been obvious when talking about Catholic Saints. (ditto for Ortodox Saints)
Let's give a big ovation for Google!:
http://www.catholic.org/saints/patron.php?letter=A
Thomas More is the Patron Saint of politicians (which do need all the help they can get to enter Heaven), and Ferdinand III of Castille is the Patron Saint of Rulers.
I'll put forward Pope Leon III (reign 795-816). As an eighth century pope, he certainly was no democrat, but he was the first pope to formally crown an emperor (Charlemagne) as a definite, separate figure -the origins of the "separation of church and state", one of the basics of modern democracies.
Dure
Banned
1) First poster does not specify Catholic or even Xtian as required for sainthood.
2) Why constrain one's thinking? Making saints of atheists is much more fun. Molsems are good too come to think of it, how about St. Salman Rushdie?
3) Just a thought but as both Protestantism and Americanism are heresies in the Roman Catholic church doctrine should we not therefore be talking about the patron DEMON of democracy? Democracy being the work of the fallen one and all?
The first poster specifically asks for a Patron Saint. That is a figure ofthe Roman Catholic and Ortodox churches. A saint, patron or otherwise, must be worshipped by Catholics (or ortodoxs) and have three proved miracles either before or after death (proved, that is, by a church comision created for that purpose). It does not actually require catholicism (as the earlier saints, and the apostles themselves, predate the catholic branch of the faith), but I cannot think on a single non-christian saint.
Democracy was not created by Protestants, it was created by (pagan) greeks.
Edit: Some figures of Christs life, like the Virgin's parents, Veronica or Longinus, are saints, even though they probably never were actual christians. But most ot them are probably apocriphal myths. There were times when it seems the church canonized even that used chariot salesman than once bumped into Jesus in the Great Jerusalem-Samaria donkey race of 28 (Niniveh won, in a close battle)
Last edited:
Ste. Anne (mother of Mary), St. Joachim (father of Mary) are the obvious ones.
Are Archangels 'Christians'? St. Michael.
But, certainly, to be a 'saint' one has to belong to The True Faith.
Nope.
It would be a touch tricky, these days considering how thoroughly devolved the various national churches are.
It is a touch odd that Anglicans and e.g. Lutherans recognize (pre-Reformation) saints, but have no process for recognizing new ones.
Skokie
Banned
Roman Catholicism/Eastern Orthodoxy were too tied to monarchism to have developed an officially recognized cultus around a patron saint of democracy by 1900. You'd need to go way back in history and sever the ties between Constantine and the church. So,
________________________________
4th century (Whoops!)
Constantine literally falls on his sword and dies after tripping and falling when he is blinded by a vision of a giant Mithraic Bull in the sun.
Butterflies everywhere! No Caesaropapism. No imperial Christianity. No Christian imperium. No emphasis on Christ's kingship. No divine right of kings in the Christian sense. No "New Rome" eschatology. No Christian basileis, no Muslim caliphs. No Islam. And no most-of-all-medieval-and-modern-history.
4th–7th centuries (Chaos)
Decline of Roman power in the West, as per usual. War with Persia. Alexandria, Pergamon or Antioch take on function of OTL Constantinople. Christians never make it into power. The empire never adopts a single ideology to the exclusion of all others. Scriptoria are left in the hands of secular authorities rather than the Church. Instead of losing 90% of all ancient texts, only 30% are lost. Greco-Roman Polytheism survives alongside Christianity. Christians separate into four or so camps (like OTL Buddhists). Christians compete for followers among the barbarian kings alongside Jewish sects and new cults. Many forms of Judaism appear. Egyptian religion syncretized fully into Greco-Roman religion.
8th–12th centuries (Imperial reform)
Trade with India makes a new class of Greco-Arab traders rich. Neoplatonism falls out of fashion in Alexandria. All things classically Athenian are in vogue. The scientific progress that ended with the third century crisis and began in the 12th century in Europe in OTL, begins in Alexandria in the 8th century. Alexandria, Pergamon, Ephesus, Antioch, etc. become democracies. The empire system is reformed.
1100s (Well that was convenient)
Armies sent to the West to reconquer lands lost to the barbarians. Easterners' technological superiority make things a lot easier. Cities are rebuilt.
12th–19th centuries (everything works out as planned)
Stuff happens. Invasions and bubonic plagues and other dark ages haunt the Mediterranean and Europe. Another renaissance comes, which develops into a quasi-Enlightenment in which democracy is a cardinal virtue. Not wanting to appear out of sync with the times or seem unpatriotic, the Church digs up some random, possibly mythological figure from the past and passes him off as a Patron Saint of Democracy. His cultus is popular around 1900.
________________________________
4th century (Whoops!)
Constantine literally falls on his sword and dies after tripping and falling when he is blinded by a vision of a giant Mithraic Bull in the sun.
Butterflies everywhere! No Caesaropapism. No imperial Christianity. No Christian imperium. No emphasis on Christ's kingship. No divine right of kings in the Christian sense. No "New Rome" eschatology. No Christian basileis, no Muslim caliphs. No Islam. And no most-of-all-medieval-and-modern-history.
4th–7th centuries (Chaos)
Decline of Roman power in the West, as per usual. War with Persia. Alexandria, Pergamon or Antioch take on function of OTL Constantinople. Christians never make it into power. The empire never adopts a single ideology to the exclusion of all others. Scriptoria are left in the hands of secular authorities rather than the Church. Instead of losing 90% of all ancient texts, only 30% are lost. Greco-Roman Polytheism survives alongside Christianity. Christians separate into four or so camps (like OTL Buddhists). Christians compete for followers among the barbarian kings alongside Jewish sects and new cults. Many forms of Judaism appear. Egyptian religion syncretized fully into Greco-Roman religion.
8th–12th centuries (Imperial reform)
Trade with India makes a new class of Greco-Arab traders rich. Neoplatonism falls out of fashion in Alexandria. All things classically Athenian are in vogue. The scientific progress that ended with the third century crisis and began in the 12th century in Europe in OTL, begins in Alexandria in the 8th century. Alexandria, Pergamon, Ephesus, Antioch, etc. become democracies. The empire system is reformed.
1100s (Well that was convenient)
Armies sent to the West to reconquer lands lost to the barbarians. Easterners' technological superiority make things a lot easier. Cities are rebuilt.
12th–19th centuries (everything works out as planned)
Stuff happens. Invasions and bubonic plagues and other dark ages haunt the Mediterranean and Europe. Another renaissance comes, which develops into a quasi-Enlightenment in which democracy is a cardinal virtue. Not wanting to appear out of sync with the times or seem unpatriotic, the Church digs up some random, possibly mythological figure from the past and passes him off as a Patron Saint of Democracy. His cultus is popular around 1900.
How about JFK? Thus far he is the only Roman Catholic in American history to have become President.
I thought it'd be sort of obvious I meant a Christian Saint..
Also, to open things up a bit, they don't have to be recognized by the Vatican.
I was sort of thinking maybe something in South America myself.
Skokie
Banned
That makes things somewhat easier. I'd say Kościuszko, even though he technically left the Catholic Church. (They still buried him in Wawel Cathedral, Poland's "Westminster Abbey.") He lead a remarkable life, fought for democracy throughout Europe and America, and cared for and sought to improve the lot of the poor.
He'd be very popular in the US, Poland, Belarus, Lithuania and possibly France.
Last edited:
Dure
Banned
@Rakhasa
@Dathi THorrfinnson
@Iori
This is not a definition of saint, this is an incomplete and inexact explanation of how the Roman Catholic church decides if someone should become a saint.
I can think of lots of Buddhists that would disagree with you. Some Sufi's too.
Your statement is irrelevant to the point, democracy is incompatible with, indeed is in juxtaposition to, Roman Catholic church dogma. To accept democracy is to fall into the heresy of Americanism and (in other respects) Protestantism. A patron saint of democracy cannot exist because democracy is heretical and therefore at best an error of man, at worst an agency of Lucifer.
@Dathi THorrfinnson
Every time I see someone write or say ‘The True Faith’ and capitalise it I widdle myself and start looking for a bolt hole. In my head I see men wearing the Benedictine cross indiscriminately killing men, women and children that worship under the crescent, I see Jews die in untold numbers and I see starving Han giving up their old belief for a handful of rice. You are a scary person Dathi.
@Iori
Nope, Mischief Rule applies, write exactly what you mean, otherwise some awkward sod (in this case me) will come along and interpret your text their way.
Maybe, personally I think whoever the person would be would be Polish being one of the first democracies, but he would have to have been more religiously active to be canonized...
Skokie
Banned
The biggest blow would probably be that he had sex. And enjoyed it.
(srsly, how many non-celibate saints of the Christian era are there? I can't think of any, save for the Virgin Mary's mom and dad and Constantine's mom, and those are minor.)
I didn't know - but even without any web search T.M. came to my mind when reading the challenge.
The first thing we need is the Pope's approval of democracy in general.
In OTL, the French revolution and subsequent expansion brought forward simultaneously
democracy, personal liberties and an atheistical philosophy.
So we have to take these apart.
Let's build an 18th century (I guess such a PoD timing is allowed) where
the monarchs of Europe gradually lose their Christian beliefs, for a bunch of reasons:
a) weariness with pointless religious quarrels between Protestants and Catholics,
and the tacid convention to elide these in many circumstances,
b) influence of Enlightenment philosophers and poets,
c) fading Ottomanian threats, which somewhat upheld Christian solidarity and identification.
This certainly has also happened in OTL to some degree.
But now they openly confess so.
We could start by Louis XIV. of France claiming not being king by grace of God,
but by his own splendor - set into power by some impersonal provision.
Other absolutistic rulers will follow that fashion, esp. in non-Habsburg Germany
and Spain.
The various Popes regularly rant about these developments,
but some also get acquainted to the new situation.
After almost a century of godless megalomania,
the French revolution wipes away the old system of self-complacent tyrants.
Being ignited mostly by growing poverty under royal shadows and
by sufferance of martial consequences,
the rebellion claims to restitute the holy order of Europe,
which is designated as a country for Christ.
The menacing speeches against the rich from the Gospel of Luke and
the Epistle of Judas constitute their favorite slogans.
The current Pope, Clement XV., whose energetic advocacy for the return to Christianity
is hardly explicable given the facts,
finally has his great day. After their overthrow of the Ancien Regime,
he receives a delegation of the revolutionaries and welcomes them
as the legitimate lords of France. Among them there is the popular Abbé Sieyès,
who had opposed the royal policies for a long time.
Seeing that the young French republic keeps to its Christianity - despite all other political
issues - and that religion does not become any more popular on the thrones of Europe,
the subsequent Popes embark on appreciation of democracy as the preffered form of state.
In 1850, hardly two decades after his death, Abbé Sieyès is proclaimed Saint.
He becomes especially popular in France and in the duchies of
Germany liberated by French
conquests which had had particulary atheistical-absolutistic rulers
(i.e. all aristocratic lay states but Austria).
How many points does that score?
Last edited: